


all my courage quick wit

by 8The_Great_Perhaps8



Series: all your faves are schizophrenic [4]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Child Abuse, Don't Try This At Home, Gen, Medication, Schizophrenia, Schizophrenia Written By Schizophrenic, Underage Drinking, attempted suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-06
Updated: 2016-05-24
Packaged: 2018-05-25 04:38:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6180457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/8The_Great_Perhaps8/pseuds/8The_Great_Perhaps8
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>rose has been hallucinating since she was six, john has been medicated since he was eight, jade's movements are always strange and jerky, and dave couldn't cry at a funeral if you paid him. they're all fucked up in the worst ways, but they're trying their hardest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. a friend i hadn't seen since i was drinking underage

**Author's Note:**

> all the beta kids are schizophrenic ;))))  
> all titles in this series are from jamie t sticks 'n' stones

Your name is Rose Lalonde, you are six years old, and you have been hearing voices in your head for basically your whole life. Your mother tells you that you shouldn’t mind the voices, and that she will take you to the psychiatrist as soon as she gets sober.

Your mother is never sober.

You have decided that you will become the psychiatrist your own damn self, and nobody can stop you.

Your cat is your first patient.

“So, Mr. Jaspers,” you say, six years old and seeing shadows out of the corners of your vision. “What can you tell me about your symptoms?”

Jaspers meows at you from the opposite armchair. _I’ve been seeing things,_ is what the meow said.

You hum. “Is there anything else?” You ask him.

Jaspers purrs and curls himself up in the chair. _I have been seeing shadows, doctor._ He tells you.

Jaspers’ symptoms always seem to line up with yours.

“Mister Jaspers,” you tell your cat, “that sounds to me like you have severe paranoid schizophrenia. It is easily treatable with the proper medication and weekly psychiatry sessions.”

Jaspers is not in his chair anymore, and you can’t remember if he ever was there.

Two weeks later, you find your cat washed up dead on the side of the river. You demand to have a funeral for your kitten, and your mother seems just to be humoring you with the melodrama of the funeral.

“Bye-bye, Jaspers,” you whisper tearfully. You flee to your room for the next two weeks and refuse to allow your mother to speak to you.

 _Good girl,_ the voices whisper. _Smart girl._

You preen under the praise of the voices, the voices that are usually so very cruel. You glow under the voices that make you so crazy, and you go out the window to see the so rarely appearing sun, in your cloudy New York.

The sun glows a bright and ferocious gold, and the voices tell you to _back away, dearie, back away don’t touch it it will burn you_.

You close the curtains and settle back down on your bed to sulk.

 _Sleep,_ the voices whisper.

You pass out.

//:\\\

You know the shadows for the next year, the next five years, the next seven years of your life. They cajole you, they stroke you, they tell you secrets.

You know what will happen to you if you disobey.

It only gets worse when you find the Grimoire and discover their gruesome tricks. Because after you find the Grimoire, you know that you have to worship them, and you know how to worship them. You know that you must bleed for them on the full moon, and you know what symbols to draw on the floor of your mother’s observatory.

When you are thirteen years old, you see your gods in your dreams. Later, you see your gods and your shadows following you around, and you feel death coming.

You have spoken about this to your friends before, of course. You have told them about your gods and your shadows and your ceremonies. At this point, you can predict all of their reactions very easily.

John, since he has gotten on medication, will tell you that everything is okay. John will say that you don’t need to do your ceremonies. John will tell you to talk to your mother and he will tell you to get on medication.

You are not interested in John’s ad infinitum “it’s okay, it’s not real, nothing will happen.”

Jade will not be able to speak to you. She will either be lying on the grass on her island, not moving, just staring at the sky and waiting for her energy to come back, or she will be too busy watering her plants, over and over, playing the same six songs on her electric bass.

You need to speak to someone, and you need them to speak back. You dismiss Jade.

Dave is probably the closest to you. He will automatically take what you say seriously, because it’s far more work to laugh at you. Dave will not laugh at what you are seeing, and he will not tell you what to do or how to feel.

Dave, however, will not tell you what you want to hear. Dave will tell you that you should just suck it up and talk to your mother.

Then, you will get angry and tell Dave to shut the hell up and talk to his brother, if that’s how he damn feels. Then, you will go up to your observatory to summon your gods, and it will go on and on and on and on, forever and a day.

You do not contact Dave.

You hide under your bed and begin scrawling down the words you hear in your journal. You ignore your compulsions, you ignore your fear, you ignore the darkness that surrounds you, fills you, destroys you.

At thirteen years old, you hide yourself under your bed and you hold your diary close to your body.

At fourteen years old, you try to kill yourself for the first time by slashing your wrists with a fillet knife in your observatory.

Your mother finds you there, five minutes after the fact, and calls you an ambulance.

You aren’t conscious for that part, though.

You wake up, twenty-four hours later, in Lake Placid Health Center, under suicide watch with your mother in the chair next to you.

“Darling,” she says, faking sympathy. She puts her hand on your wrist, and you have never felt angrier. “You should have told me how you were feeling.”

How you were feeling was bullshit. Anyone saying anything about how you were feeling has never known, could never know, what was happening.

“You’re going to get better,” she tells you, and your blood is boiling. She doesn’t get to tell you what you are going to do. She doesn’t get to decide.

“For now,” she says, “we’re going to put you on some antipsychotics, alright? And we’re going to put your Grimoire away.”

You are shaking in your hospital gown, you are screaming in your own mind, you are, you are, you are—

You are being sedated, apparently, because you cannot bring yourself to claw your mother’s eyes out.

“Get some rest, sweetheart,” you mother tells you. “You’ll be out of here in three days, okay?”

It is certainly not okay. You would rather die than stay in this goddamned hospital for even one more hour, one more minute, one more second.

If only it had worked.

//:\\\

Your name is Rose Lalonde, and six weeks after you get out of the hospital you find your Grimoire.

It matters less to you now, you reflect, now that you know about your gods and your shadows and what they want. They told you that they do not need your blood any longer, that you do not have to bleed for them or die for them.

Your antipsychotics work mildly well. You cannot stop moving and your face is always, always jumping and moving and ticking and changing. You are tired and your skin is so sensitive to the sun, almost like eight years ago when your shadows told you to close the curtains.

There’s a long list of rules about your medication that you’re supposed to follow. You aren’t supposed to get dehydrated, or go outside if the weather’s too hot, or drink alcohol.

You aren’t supposed to do much of anything with your medication, but you don’t mind that. Warnings are only ever warnings, and no one has expressly told you not to do anything.

Your mother keeps her bourbon in the cupboard next to the refrigerator. She keeps her shot glasses in the cupboard above the microwave.

Alcohol is numbing, a sedative, soft enough to make your face stop moving, slow enough to take away the excess energy you have.

It is enough to make you forget.

//:\\\

Your name is Rose Lalonde, and you are sixteen years old when you come off your first bender.

It was two days long, and in the middle of summer vacation, so you didn’t really lose out on too much.

Your computer shows that you’ve received twenty-three messages while you were absent.

 **JADE** said: rose omg are you okay??? D: D: D:

 **DAVE** said: hey rose you arent supposed to drink while youre on those stupid drugs

 **JOHN** said: rose please don’t do anything you’ll regret!

And so on, and so on, and so on.

The bourbon bottle you had stolen from your mother sits on your desk, empty. Your pills are right next to it.

You reach for your pills, hands shaking, and take one.

Morning dose.

//:\\\

Detoxification is not fun. Not at all. You spend most of it vomiting up all your meals and shaking and hallucinating, no matter how regularly you take your medication.

John cheers you on throughout, every day saying that you can do it, that nothing is standing in your way.

Jade, when she can, tells you that she believes in you, no matter what. She tells you that no matter what happens, she will always love you and be your friend.

Dave texts you daily and always reminds you not to drink, reminds you to take your pills, reminds you of every goddamn thing in your life.

“I get it, Dave,” you finally text him. “I’m not about to fall off the goddamned wagon because you forget to text me one time.”

‘whatever,’ he texts you. His reminders settle to daily, weekly, monthly, until he’s back to talking to you about normal things.

You’re doing your best.

//:\\\

You are Rose Lalonde, and at age eighteen you are going off to college with your three best friends, and you are ready.


	2. why the loved one's out to leave

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [backstreet's back playing in the distance]

You are Dave Strider and you live in a shitty apartment in Houston with your older brother. You have lived in this shitty apartment your entire life, and always with your shitty older brother. You have to hide your food in your closet if you want to eat, not to mention his creepy fucking porn ring.

It would piss you off, if it could.

When you talk to Rose about it, the whole ‘if it could if it could if it could’ of emotional distance she spiels out some bullshit about flat effect and disorganized thoughts and whatever whatever whatever.

All you ever say to Rose when she’s being Rose is ‘whatever whatever whatever’ until you get tired of typing and take a nap on your laptop keyboard.

You haven’t always been like this, though. When you were younger, you used to be screaming and running and filled with excitement. You used to laugh at all the wrong parts of movies and you would stare at Rose talking to you about her gods with your mouth wide open and tears coming down your face.

It’s kind of like a pendulum, you guess, this stupid fucking back and forth between not feeling a goddamned thing and screaming, howling laughter at everything the fuck you see.

It kinda sucks, you guess.

You don’t really care about it right now, though. Right now, you’re hiding food in your closet so you can eat for the next week, and hiding it so Bro doesn’t steal most of it.

Bro is probably the best part of your life, no matter what Rose says about idolization of abusers or inappropriate contact or unhealthy living environments, no matter what John asks you about if you’re eating right or if you want to come live with him for a week or two or three or whatever or if you remember how to get out of your apartment without waking him up, no matter what Jade tells you about how she learned self-defense without a teacher and how you could do it too and how it’s not even for your Bro, it’s just for in case you need it

You don’t really care about what they all say. Your bro is your bro, and he’s always going to be the best thing going on in your life. Your grades are nothing to write home about, you suck at anything involving sports, and you aren’t even that good at your hobbies. Your bro is just doing what’s best for you, no matter what anybody else says.

Besides, he always apologizes, so it’s not that terrible.

Sometimes, you wonder if he really means his apologies, usually tossed out when he has a beer in his hand and he’s watching some creepy puppet porn in the living room. Sometimes, you think he’s only saying that in case Rose or John (not Jade though, because she’s aggressively Australian) call Child Services on you and you have to testify.

You don’t really want that to be the case, but you think that it might be, sometimes. Because sometimes, he’ll apologize and you’ll nod and he’ll chuck his beer can at your head and ask for another.

But that’s just the way older brothers are, right? Older brothers are just obnoxious and cruel and angry. It’s the way of the world. Brothers are bad, mothers are negligent, fathers are overbearing, and grandfathers are dead. Neat little boxes for neat little people.

It all works out.

The only problem is Bro’s fucking doll. It’s three feet tall, it’s name is Cal, and it watches you. It follows you around the apartment, too, like it knows where you’re going to be before you do.

When you talk to Rose about it, she asks if maybe Cal is an agent of her gods. When you talk to Jade about it, she asks if Cal is robotic. When you talk to John about it, he asks if maybe you’re imagining things.

Like, no fucking shit, the crazy boy is imagining things. Doesn’t make it any less real.

Cal is staring at you right now, and you’re pretty sure that it’s telling Bro what it’s seeing. You know that if Bro figures out your hiding place for food he’ll raid it, and then neither of you will have anything to eat until Bro’s next paycheck and trip to the grocery store, since it’s summer right now and you don’t get the lunch at school.

You try to reach out to tip Cal off the chair he’s somehow moved from your desk to in front of the closet, but your hand freezes about three inches from Cal’s face.

His eyes stay wide and he keeps grinning, and you know it’s because he knows that you won’t do a goddamn thing to him. How many times has this happened, how many times has Cal had you fucking trapped with your hand inches away from touching him, so close to finally knocking him back and finally getting some fucking safety in your own fucking apartment? How Many seconds, minutes, have you wasted staring at a fucking doll while you try to work up the nerve to shove him, to make contact with him? When you die, what percentage of your life will you have devoted to this god damn doll and this sick fucking performance?

You withdraw your hand, slowly, the same way you have hundreds of millions of times before. You finish stocking your closet and edge out of the room, keeping your focus on Cal the whole time.

When Bro knocks past you to retrieve his puppet, you barely notice.

“Hey, little man,” he says as he lifts Cal, and you don’t know which one of you he’s speaking to. “Did you have fun with Dave?”

That answers that.

It’s always the same, day after day after week after month after year for as long as you can remember. From when you used to tack up grocery lists on the refrigerator like all the good little unfed kids did in the books you got from the library, to deciding to start going to the grocery store yourself, to buying food only for yourself because fuck wherever Bro gets his food from. It’s always Bro and his fucking doll talking like that thing is a fucking human.

You know that he likes it more than he likes you. He doesn’t throw shit or scream at Cal.

That shit’s fucking stupid, though, so you don’t bring it up to Bro.

That day, you walk out of your apartment—and Bro doesn’t even notice, of course he doesn’t, when does he ever—and you keep walking. You walk out the building, down the street, the August sun burning your eyes and your skin. It’s blistering out, hot and dry and filled with the sounds of crashing metal and the smell of bright red iron. You walk until the street reaches its dead end, then you turn and keep walking.

Eventually, the sun sets and you’re forced to admit that not only do you have no fucking clue where you are, you also have next to no way to find your way home. You’re not in the red light district yet, but you’re close, and you’ve heard too many horror stories about people getting kidnapped there to try to venture in now.

Finally, you decide to go down an alleyway and make yourself comfortable against the edge of the brick wall.

It’s not as good as the apartment, but it’s not as bad, either.

you get nudged awake in the morning by a cop, which is pretty much what you imagined your future being. Sure, it might be a bit more premature than your fantasies had dictated, but maybe you’re an early achiever.

“Son?” The cop asks, and you blink. You still have your shades on, thank god, so she probably can’t see your eyes.

“I’m fine,” you say as you stand out, stretch out your arms. “Went out for a late night walk last night, must’ve dozed off.”

The cop sighs. “Alright, sure,” she says. “Kid, your folks must be worried sick. I’ll walk you back to your place.”

Bro hates it when strangers show up at your place, and strangers can be anyone from the neighbors to your teacher. He definitely wouldn’t like cops.

“Nah,” you tell her, sounding casual because when the fuck do you not. “I can get back on my own. ‘S no biggie.”

You’ve already turned to leave the alley when the cop grabs you by the arm.

“I said,” she tells you, “I’ll walk you home.”

You shrug. “Whatever,” you tell her.

You turn back around and keep walking, and the cop keeps easy pace.

“What’s your name, kid?” She asks you after you pass the first corner.

“Dave.”

“How old are you, Dave?”

Like you don’t know the trick she’s using. Call the kid by his first name so he’ll trust you, so he’ll answer any questions you have about anything, so you can save the poor, tragic inner-city youth.

“Thirteen. Am I gonna need to call my lawyer for the rest of this walk?”

The cop raises an eyebrow. “You shouldn’t need to, but we don’t have to talk if you don’t want to.”

You roll your eyes, decide not to talk to her again. For the rest of the walk home, she peppers you with questions about your home life—does daddy hurt you when he comes home from work? Does mommy buy you enough food? Show me on this anatomically-correct doll where the bad men touch you.

It’s full of shit, and it’s almost funny how badly she wants to help you, how bad she wants to go back to the precinct to talk to the chief about getting a kid away from an abusive environment, how much she wants to finally get the courage to stand up to her abusive boyfriend, how big a hard-on she has for talking to her dad about the kid she saved and how happy she is to have grown up in a safe home, roll credits, character development on Deputy Dipshit done for the season. You almost start laughing in the middle of the sidewalk at how fucking desperate she is to be a good cop.

Either the alley wasn’t as far away as you remember walking, or you just walk faster when you’re solar powered, but you get back to your building a hell of a lot faster than you remember walking away from it.

“Well, here we are,” you tell the cop. “Thanks for your services and everything, but I’m fairly certain that I can make my way back to my apartment without more of your help. Go serve the fine people of Houston with honor and pride, good day.”

It’s twice now that the lady cop has grabbed your arm before you can make your rightful escape, and you have a funny feeling like she’s going to keep on doing it.

“I think I’d better come in with you, Dave. Just to make sure your folks know that you’re safe.”

Bro’s not gonna like this, you know, and you almost grin at what he might due to her. No faces, Dave, no faces.

“Whatever,” you say. You walk into the building with the cop following close behind you.

You and Bro are on the tenth story, and god only knows how long the elevator has been out of order, so you and your tagalong take the long way up ten flights of stairs.

“So,” the cop says, “who do you live with? Mom, dad, brother?”

“Yes,” you say.

“All three?”

Talking is a waste of breath at this point, so you keep walking, all the way up to your apartment and before you know it, the cop is pounding on your door.

“Houston P.D., open up!” She hollers “I have Dave here, he’s been out all night and he needs to get back into his apartment.”

Bro sticks his head out the door. “Li’l bro,” he acknowledges you, then turns to the cop. “Got a warrant?”

“Sir, I’m just dropping off Dave. He slept in an alley last night, and I’d like to discuss his situation with you.”

“Bet you would.” Bro ushers you into the apartment through the cracked door. “Sorry, I’m busy.”

“Sir-”

Bro slams the door in her face.

It’s going to be a long day.

You talk to Rose and John and Jade about your little escape attempt first, all in one memo because fuck saying things more than once and you’re already starting to lose your grip on keep calm, poker face, no faces, already slipping into a manic grin when you look at things and when everybody asks you if you’re alright, if they need to call Social Services, if you have food in your closet—

You’re screaming with laughter by the time you get to the end of the story, by the time Rose has exhausted her daily meter of concern, by the time Jade realizes she has thirty seconds to water her plants because it’s been six hours, by the time John has cycled back to it’s going to be okay Dave and take deep breaths Dave and do you need me to call the police Dave, blah blah blah blah Dave Dave Dave Dave FUCK!

You’re manic, a maniac, you don’t know what’s wrong except god you can’t stop fucking smiling.

When you ex out Pesterchum and turn away from your computer, mouth wide and gaping, there Cal sits, staring at you and mirroring your grin.

You’re sick of him now, you’re so fucking sick of him, you grab him and you pull him up by his shitty rope arm and you hold him out the window and you light him fire.

Sick fires, bro, and there’s Bro, busting down your bedroom door, pulling Cal back through the window and stomping out the fire and staring at you like you’re the crazy one.

“I always told you not to fuck with Cal,” he says, deadly ice. “First rule, don’t fuck with Cal. First goddamn rule.”

Next week your out your house in a Home For Troubled Youth because fuck you, because fuck your brother loving a puppet more than he loves you, because fuck starring in puppet snuff films that got a million billion views and also got you and Bro cable.

The cop lady from a week ago comes to the Home every so often and says hey-buddy-you’re-okay-now-you’re-safe and you are so sick of it after two months.

“All you have to do is break down and cry at least once,” Dirk explains. Dirk is four years older than you and he’s been at the home since he was six, and he’s basically the source of all the wisdom you’ve gotten at the home since you showed up, with your limited access to Pesterchum and Rose and Jade and maybe, even, sometimes John. “If you cry, Dave, she’ll think she’s made a breakthrough and she’ll get to tell her family about the poor little inner city boy she got to help.”

“I don’t cry,” you tell him, completely flat effect, completely deadpan, completely dead.

“Fake it,” Dirk tells you.

Two months after that, you fake it and the cop lady leaves looking satisfied, and she cuts her visits down to every other week, then every third week, then once a month and that’s that.

“Told you,” Dirk tells you, because Dirk never forgets anything.

“I guess,” you concede.

Later, you discover that you and Dirk share a birthday, and Dirk decides that this means that he has to take you out for it.

“I’m just turning fourteen,” you tell him.

“It’s the only time you’ll be turning fourteen,” Dirk argues.

“You’re turning eighteen,” you shoot back. “You’re leaving the home, that’s way more important.”

The two of you go on and on and on, back and forth, until finally Dirk headlocks you into submission.

He takes you to the movies, some lame Ben Stiller flick.

He leaves the home on the fourth, and then you’re alone.

Sure, you can pester Jade and Rose and John sometimes, and Dirk writes to you occasionally, and the cop lady comes by sometimes, but you don’t really have any friends in real life.

It’s four years of boredom straight up, until Rose says she’s been accepted to Michigan State, and John says that hey, he has too, and then Jade says that she could go to Michigan state, since hey, her Grandpa left her a million dollars, and her flowers all died when her patterns got more into her running around the island and practicing the same three songs on her bass.

You hadn’t really considered college, since you figured that your future careers included being a homeless schizophrenic in some comedian’s sketch. But you google MSU, and the director of the home looks so goddamn proud of you, and Dirk with his robotics contract for a billion dollars right out of the home tells you that he’s proud of you, and Rose suggests the music program and John says the photography program and Jade says the videography program and you say yes, yes, yes, and you go to MSU in the fall with Rose and Jade and John and fuck Bro, fuck his weird puppet fetish, you haven’t talked to him since you were thirteen no matter how many times he’s come by the home.

Whatever, you guess. Pretty cool.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> once i read a fic where dave was schizo and he lit cal on fire but cal was his kid brother and dave got sent to an insane asylum so fuck you 008thedarklordsatan800 eat several dicks


End file.
